Exploring standards to advance microbial genomics

Microbes contribute to manifold human endeavors ranging from bioenergy to agriculture to medicine. Moreover, they make the Earth's biogeochemical cycles go round, a prerequisite for all life on the planet. Exceedingly numerous, ...

Gene map aims to combat blood flukes

The first microsatellite-based genetic linkage map has been published for Schistosoma mansoni, a blood fluke that is known to infect over 90 million people in Africa, the Middle East and the New World. Researchers writing ...

Midget plant gets makeover

A tiny plant with a long name (Arabidopsis thaliana) helps researchers from over 120 countries learn how to design new crops to help meet increasing demands for food, biofuels, industrial materials, and new medicines. The ...

Biomedical engineers teach bacteria to count

Biomedical engineers at Boston University have taught bacteria how to count. Professor James J. Collins and colleagues have wired a new sequence of genes that allow the microbes to count discrete events, opening the door ...

Research team finds important role for junk DNA

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists have called it "junk DNA." They have long been perplexed by these extensive strands of genetic material that dominate the genome but seem to lack specific functions. Why would nature force the ...

FANTOM findings boost for biologists

Genomic regulatory blocks have unique features that may explain their ability to respond to regulatory inputs from very long distances, according to a special thematic series of companion articles from the FANTOM4 consortium. ...

Catching the common cold virus genome

A new study by Brigham Young University researchers on the virus behind nearly half of all cold infections explains how and where evolution occurs in the rhinovirus genome and what this means for possible vaccines.

Reversing ecology reveals ancient environments

From hair color to the ancestral line of parasitic bacteria, scientists can glean a lot from genes. But imagine if genes also revealed where you lived or who you spent time with. It turns out they do, if you know where and ...

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